Despite my previous opinionated judgement of The Block, one interesting thing came out of a recent episode. My awareness of a particular custom furniture maker, and their Melbourne store: Mark Tuckey

Some amazing design concepts. Not necessarily something I’d have in my house, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the concepts, or how they have been executed.

I wonder if some have been made on a lathe – would be a lot easier than shaping them otherwise. However, if they were, the lathe must be a monster!

Mark Tuckey

Check out the round table/bowl to one side.

Coffee Table

Coffee Table Side

Rustic Stool

Lots of other really fascinating furniture designs on Mark’s site – definitely worth a look, and I’m quite keen to visit the store to see some of these items in person. Love to see the workshop!

This idea of taking a bundle of logs and forming an item of furniture is rather interesting, and has been attempted elsewhere as well. Here are some other examples I found in some web searching. The resulting piece must weigh a tonne!

Phillips Collection Side Tables

A real log table

That last one is very cool – I love the combination of a reasonably neat matrix of larger logs, with the remaining space well filled with just the right sized thinner branches.